Big Book Of Lesbian Horse Stories

by Surkis, Alisa

  Grandma Jennie sat at the other end of the backseat from Oreola, knitting and sucking her toothless gums. In between her and Oreola were the four little Budds—Jeff, the twins Bob and Bunnie, and little Loula Mae Budd, who was only two. Now all of them were awake, whimpering and fidgeting so that Oreola could hardly stand it.

  “Grandma Jennie, I’m goin’ to climb up top and git me some fresh air,” said Oreola. “Likely we’ll be here for some time.”

  Grandma Jennie nodded and cackled to herself in that way she had. Oreola cranked down the window, squeezed out from under the rolled-up rug that lay across the little Budds, and nimbly climbed through the opening. Getting a foothold on the rearview mirror, she grasped onto the tie ropes and pulled herself to the top of the car, where the mattresses were piled. Way up there, Oreola could feel a faint cool breeze. She lay back on the topmost mattress and tried to imagine, for the thousandth time, what California would be like.

  For the last year, the family had talked of little else besides California—how green it was, how the fruit practically fell off the trees right into your mouth, how a man could find enough work there to feed his family—unlike Oklahoma, where crops and jobs and whole families had just disappeared in a cloud of red dust these past few years. Of all the Budd children, only Oreola could even remember a time when there’d been green on their farm and more to eat than grits. Oreola thought about the raisin that each of the Budd children had found in their Christmas stockings this past year. The little ones had gobbled theirs up straightaway and then cried when it was all gone. Oreola had meant to save her raisin for something special but, in the end, had divided it up so that her little brothers and sisters could each get one more sweet taste.

  Since they’d set out, two weeks earlier, the whole family had made a game out of saying what they all hoped for when they got to California. Pa hoped to make enough money to buy a new farm and Ma hoped for a new dress, her first since before Oreola was born. Uncle Jo-Jo said how he’d heard they had some mighty pretty gals out in California and maybe he could meet himself one who wouldn’t hold it against a feller if he’d spent a little stretch in the state pen. Grandma Jennie hoped she could get herself some new teeth and Jeff, Bob, and Bunnie never stopped talking about raisins. Only Loula Mae and Oreola never joined in, Loula Mae because she was too young to talk much yet, and Oreola because she was too shy to say that the only thing she hoped for was a best friend.

  When Oreola was nine, she had read a story in her school reader about two girls who were best friends. They had gone for walks together and combed each other’s hair and told each other everything. Oreola had known that she would never be best friends with any of the girls in her class—Sissy Jenkins was too stuck-up, Betsy Pearson was mean as a rattlesnake, and Evie Sue Tyler just wasn’t right in the head—but she had hoped that maybe some new girl would come to the school to be her best friend. Then the money to pay Miss Littleton had run out and the school had closed.

  That had been three years ago, but Oreola had never stopped thinking about it. She’d even fashioned herself a doll out of a corn cob, some straw, and a couple of lima beans and named it Annie, like one of the girls in the book. Oreola looked wistfully down at Annie, whom she always kept close at hand, and smoothed down the few strands of straw that served as her hair. Yes, California was sure to be better.

  They were somewhere in Texas now and Pa had heard that cotton pickers were making 14 cents a bale. He hoped to make enough money to get them a piece farther along the road to California, but when Oreola sat up and looked around from her perch atop the car, all she saw were fields of brown grass, in all directions.

  Then Oreola’s eyes were caught by a movement. There was a little black foal in one of the fields, switching his tail back and forth as he nosed at the long grass. As she watched, the foal kicked up his hind legs and ran in a little circle.

  Oreola slid off the mattress and landed lightly in the dirt by the side of the road. Her bare feet made no sound as she ran through the grass toward the little foal. But the horse sensed her coming and, with a funny snort, kicked up his heels and trotted away. “Wait, little horsey, wait!” cried Oreola, running after him. But the little horse was too fast. With a whinny, he threw up his heels and disappeared in the tall grass.

  Then Oreola heard a distant put-put-put. Pa and Uncle Jo-Jo must have gotten the old Model-T started again! Turning around, she realized she’d traveled quite a piece from the road, chasing the horse. The auto was small in the distance, and as she hurried back across the fields, she saw the old car move slowly forward. “Wait, wait!” she screamed, running and stumbling through the field. But the car put-put-putted down the road, and soon disappeared over a small rise. Oreola sank down in the grass. She often rode on the mattresses up on top of the car—no one would realize that she wasn’t there until they stopped for the night. How would they ever find her again? She began to cry bitterly.

  “Que pasa?” said a voice quite near her. Oreola scrambled to her feet. A Mexican girl her own age, as short and plump as Oreola was tall and lanky, pushed her way through the tall grass. The girl had wavy black hair, covered with a red kerchief, and big brown eyes, which examined Oreola with friendly curiosity. “Who are you?” the girl asked in English.

  Oreola wiped away her tears. “I’m Oreola Budd.”

  “And what is that you are holding?” the girl inquired.

  Oreola looked down to see that she was still clutching Annie in her hand. The sight of the doll made Oreola acutely conscious of her twelve years. “It’s jist a doll,” she replied, trying to take on a careless tone.

  “A doll? But it is nothing more than a corn cob with some straw,” the strange girl said, puzzled.

  “No, looka here. Don’t you see she got lima bean eyes?” Oreola explained. “Her name is Annie.”

  The girl peered closely at Annie. “Ohhhh!” she said admiringly. “Now I see.” She smiled broadly, adding, “And her name is nearly the same as mine! I am Ana Maria Leticia Ortiz.”

  Oreola stared, disbelieving. Could this be her Annie? And she hadn’t even had to go to California to find her, she thought wonderingly. Thinking of California, Oreola remembered her plight and the tears flowed down her cheeks again.

  “What is wrong, Oreola?” Ana Maria asked sympathetically.

  “I was traveling through with my family, but they done gone off and left me.”

  “Pobrecita!” said the other girl, taking her hand. “You can stay with us.”

  There was a rustling sound, and the little black foal poked his head through the grass.

  “El Cid! You bad one! I have been looking for you,” scolded Ana Maria. The foal nuzzled her cheek, until she giggled.

  “Is this horse yours?” exclaimed Oreola. Her words tumbled over each other as she told the Mexican girl how she had followed the foal and so been left behind.

  “El Cid belongs to my family,” said the girl, hugging the foal. “Come home with me, and I will show you the tricks I have taught him.”

  Willingly Oreola followed Ana Maria. Being left behind did not seem so bad, now that she had made the acquaintance of the mischievous black foal and the friendly Mexican girl with the wonderful name.

  Soon they reached the farmyard of a small white frame house, which was bursting at the seams with black-eyed, black-haired children, Ana Maria’s brothers and sisters and cousins. Her uncle and her father had adjoining farms, Ana Maria explained, and everyone helped out on both. “We have to work very hard to pay the bank loan,” said Ana Maria.

  Oreola nodded sadly. “You-all are sure lucky you still have a farm,” she said.

  Oreola stood back bashfully as Ana Maria helped the women prepare dinner, enjoying the way they cheerfully laughed and chattered in Spanish. Her mouth watered at the many new and enticing smells. When the Ortiz clan seated themselves at the table, Ana Maria pulled Oreola into a chair next to hers. Oreola could hardly wait to dig in, but it was all so strange, she began to feel awkward. She
picked up an unfamiliar implement and whispered to Ana Maria, “How does this-here thingamabob work?”

  “This? But this is just a fork! Have you not seen one before?” responded Ana Maria, incredulous.

  “We warn’t fancy at home,” Oreola explained. “We never needed more’n a spoon.”

  Ana Maria patiently explained the use of the fork and knife to Oreola, who found them quite useful for digging into the heaping plate of food in front of her. All of the food was delicious, but best of all were Mama Ortiz’s tamales.

  “They are famous through all the county,” said Ana Maria proudly. “There is no one who makes a better tamale than mi madre. ”

  After dinner, Ana Maria took Oreola out to watch El Cid play in the corral. As they perched on the fence and watched the spirited foal, Ana Maria told Oreola her dream was to someday compete with El Cid in the barrel racing competition in Austin. “It is the biggest rodeo in all the state of Texas, and when El Cid and I win there, I am sure to find a job as a horse trainer.”

  In turn, Oreola confided to Ana Maria that she would one day like to be a nurse. “I know I’m a little short on readin’ and writin’ and figurin’ and such,” Oreola admitted, “but sometimes when the young’uns got hurt, I fixed ’em up and Ma always said I did a right fine job of it.”

  Later that night, when it was time for bed, Ana Maria asked Oreola if she would comb out her hair and offered to comb Oreola’s. Oreola shivered with delight. She could hardly believe that it was all happening just like in the story. She finally, truly had a best friend! The girls snuggled down together in Ana Maria’s bed, and whispered and giggled long into the night, even after they heard Mama Ortiz call sternly, “Ana Maria! Oreola! Silencio!”

  Oreola woke the next morning to Mama Ortiz’s call, “Oreola, mija, see who has come!” She flew down the stairs, with Ana Maria right behind her. There was the old Model-T parked in the farmyard, and her ma and pa standing by it talking to Mr. Ortiz, while the little Budds stared out the window at all the Ortiz children who stared back at them. Mama cried and scolded Oreola, at the same time giving her a hug so tight Oreola could hardly breathe. Pa rested his hand on her head, and said only, “You caused us a peck o’ worryin’, Orie.” They had driven back through the night, asking at all the farms along the road if anyone had seen a girl with yellow hair and cornflower blue eyes.

  Oreola was happy her parents had found her, but she was happier still when she heard Mr. Ortiz telling her father about the big cotton farm only three miles away. They would have work for a month, and she and Ana Maria would see each other every day! Joyfully the two girls embraced, pressing each other to their budding bosoms.

  As they chugged away, Pa remarked to Ma, “I guess them Mexicans ain’t so different from the rest of us.”

  Ma replied, “Yep, the Lord visits hard times on the white people and the brown people just the same.”

  Pa laughed grimly. “Or the bank does.”

  The month flew by all too soon. Every evening, Oreola would walk the three miles from the pickers’ shacks to the Ortiz farm. It was a long walk after twelve backbreaking hours picking cotton, but when Oreola arrived at the Ortiz farm and heard El Cid’s spirited whinny and saw Ana Maria running to greet her, her hair flying in the wind, she would feel renewed. As they diligently worked, training El Cid, the worries and hardships that filled the rest of Oreola’s life lay outside the corral, forgotten.

  Some evenings Ana Maria and Oreola would ride through the fields on Blaze, El Cid’s mother. At first, Oreola had been afraid to climb up on the big mare— she’d only ever ridden Sal, the stubborn old mule who had pulled her father’s plow back in Oklahoma. But with Ana Maria’s patient instruction, Oreola soon lost much of her nervousness. Still, when Blaze would leap over a ditch or shy from a tumbleweed, Oreola would clutch tightly around Ana Maria’s waist, and not let go until the ride was over. Ana Maria never complained.

  Finally the day came when all the cotton was picked, and Oreola had to say goodbye. She walked over early one morning to take her leave. She could stay only a little while, for she had to help Mama pack the Model-T and take care of the young Budds. Mama Ortiz wrapped a passel of her delicious tamales for the Budds’ lunch, and Ana Maria and El Cid walked back with her through the fields.

  “You will come back again next year, yes?” Ana Maria asked.

  “I can see how we might jist do that,” answered Oreola, barely getting the words out of her tightening throat. Many times over the last month Ana Maria had asked that same question, and Oreola had given the same answer. It was easier than facing the truth—Oreola knew that with the exciting new life that awaited them in California, her family would probably never want to leave.

  “I wish we could stay in touch somehow,” said Ana Maria.

  “I’ll write to you,” promised Oreola. “And anytime we’re settled for a little while, why, you can write to me.”

  “And when we’re grown up, we’ll live together,” said Ana Maria for the hundredth time. “I’ll train horses—”

  “And I’ll be a nurse!” finished Oreola. When the two girls had hugged each other for the last time, Oreola buried her face in El Cid’s neck, so that Ana Maria would not see her tears. As the Budds’ car pulled away, Oreola pressed her face against the dusty back window of the old Model-T, waving to Ana Maria until the girl and horse were nothing but two tiny specks covered in a cloud of dust. Oreola’s greatest hope had been to find one best friend. Now she had to face the heartache of losing two.

  Other heartaches followed. It soon became clear to Oreola and the rest of the Budd family that their golden dreams of California were nothing more than an illusion perpetuated by the big growers looking for cheap labor. And so they joined the growing tide of migrant workers, traveling up and down the San Joaquin Valley in a blur of oranges, beans, lettuce, tomatoes, and cauliflower.

  But Oreola was writing faithfully every week to Ana Maria, and when they were settled anywhere for more than a few weeks, Ana Maria would write back. When Oreola’s back was aching and her hands were blistered and cut up, it was good to lie on her straw pallet in the hen coop where the fruit pickers were lodged, and read about Ana Maria and the Ortiz family and El Cid.

  Dear Oreola,

  I miss you more than I can say, and it pains me to hear of your troubles. If I were there with you, I could at least rub a gentle salve onto your hands and back. Mama makes such a salve from aloe. I think you would find it very soothing.

  El Cid is a yearling now and he is already smarter and faster than Mr. Pugh’s pure-bred quarter horse. Mr. Pugh has again offered to buy him. I fear that he knows of our troubles paying the bank loan since his brother-in-law, Mr. Hammond, is the president of the bank, but Papa promises me that he will not sell El Cid. When we win the barrel racing competition in Austin and I get a job as a horse trainer, we will no longer have to worry about the bank loan or Mr. Pugh. Then I will be able to pay for your nursing school and buy a little house where the two of us shall live together.

  With all my love,

  Ana Maria

  Reading about Ana Maria’s plans helped keep Oreola’s spirits up as her family’s situation grew increasingly worse.

  Dear Ana Maria,

  I shore do miss you. When I was pickin peaches yesterday, a drop of the juice fell into my mouth on accident and for some reason the sweet nectar set me to thinkin about the time we spent together. But then the nectar turned bitter in my mouth when they took the price of the peach out of my days wages.

  It seems like we coudnt have got ourselves to California at a werse time. Theres so many folks comin from Oklahoma way lookin fer werk out here that the growers dont hardly have to pay a thing to git folks to do the werk. Now their payin us jist a penny a bushel for pickin peaches and with the whole family workin cept for Loula Mae and Bunnie we only made us three dollers last week. Pa ain’t talkin about his farm so much or Ma about her new dress. Jeff and the twins gave up on tryin to save for a box of rai
sins when Loula Mae took sick and we had to spend their raisin money on the docter.

  Love forever,

  Oreola

  Oreola reflected bitterly on the hardships her family had suffered at the hands of the bankers and now the growers. Miss Littleton, the schoolteacher back in Oklahoma, had taught that America was the land of opportunity. As smart as Miss Littleton was, Oreola couldn’ t help but think that maybe she was wrong about that. Oreola couldn’t see that there was any opportunity for folks like her. It seemed that opportunity was only for those that already had land and money. These hard lessons might have driven all hope out of Oreola, if not for the letters from Ana Maria.

  Dear Oreola,

  El Cid has grown so swift that when I ride him, the wind feels like fingers running through my hair. I only wish that I were not riding alone. I remember how you used to hold on so tightly to me when we rode Blaze. How I wish you were here now.

  Still there is no rain and most of my papa’s crops have failed. Mama has started to sell her tamales at the market in town on Saturdays and I have taken a job in town, cleaning the house of Mr. Hammond. This leaves me less time to train El Cid, but without this money I fear that Papa would have to break his promise to me and sell El Cid.

  Dear Ana Maria,

  Is your hair still long and thick? You woudnt hardly recognize me now as short as mine is. All that hair dint do nothing but get in the way of pickin and such. It just warnt practical. I shore hope that yore hair is still as pretty as I remember it though.

  Lately it seems like the growers have decided that they got too many crops. So what do you think they do about it? Give the food to them that needs it? No sirree, that aint what they do. These here growers burn up whole piles of food and I’ll tell you it burns me up.

  Dear Oreola,

  I wish you had saved the golden tresses that you found so oppressive. I remember how lovely your hair looked when the setting sun would catch it. At least you can do nothing to change the blue of your eyes. I will take heart in that.